CASL

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/22

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A bright SPPARC
(2003) Armstrong, Linda; McGrane, Helen; Kelly, Helen
Supporting Partners of People with Aphasia in Relationships and Conversation (SPPARC) was developed in London and is a proven method of improving interpersonal communication. SPPARC brings together carer support and conversational analysis. This article describes a project which investigated whether these positive findings could be replicated in a rural area where distance and population density are different. The first half of the 28 once weekly sessions provides participants with information and support on stroke and aphasia. The second part aims to increase knowledge of conversation, including the use of video recordings. Twenty carers were invited to participate of whom ten were unable to attend through employment and other commitments. Two groups were set up, one in a town with good transport services, and the other in a small rural town. Only two of the carers and their partners were willing to video themselves and one of these was unrepresentative of normal conversation, so video clips from the programme were used to illustrate and facilitate more effective two-way conversation. Evaluations were very positive about the benefits of SPPARC. As a result of the project a monthly evening carers' group has been set up for those who attended as well as others who were unable to attend the daytime programme.
A clinical assessment tool for advanced theory of mind performance in 5 to 12 year olds.
(Springer Verlag, 2009) O'Hare, Anne; Bremner, Lynne; Nash, Marysia; Happ, Francesca; Pettigrew, Luisa M.
One hundred forty typically developing 5- to 12-year-old children were assessed with a test of advanced theory of mind employing Happ's strange stories. There was no significant difference in performance between boys and girls. The stories discriminated performance across the different ages with the lowest performance being in the younger children who nevertheless managed to achieve a third of their potential total. However, some of the individual mentalising concepts such as persuasion were too difficult for these younger children. This normative data provides a useful clinical tool to measure mentalising ability in more able children with autism spectrum disorder.
A common co-ordinate system for mid-sagittal articulatory measurement
(2011-06) Scobbie, James M.; Lawson, Eleanor; Cowen, Steve; Cleland, Joanne; Wrench, Alan A.
A standard practice in EMA articulatory measurement is to set the origin of the measurement space near the boundary of the upper incisors and gum, on a standard reference coil. A conventional horizontal dimension is defined as being parallel to the speaker's unique bite (occlusal) plane. We propose that this convention be extended to other instrumentation, with a focus on how it can be achieved for ultrasound tongue imaging (UTI) in particular, using a disposable and hygienic vacuum-formed bite plate of known size. A bite plane trace, like a palate trace, provides a consistent reference to allow images to be rotated and translated in case the probe is in a new location relative to a speaker's cranial space. The bite plane also allows speakers with differently shaped palates to be overlaid, and for ultrasound data to share a coordinate space with EMA. We illustrate the proposal using a sample of six speakers. The average bite plane slope could be used to retrospectively rotate ultrasound data that lacks bite-plane measurement
A different story: exploring patterns of communication in residential dementia care
(2008-07) Ward, Richard; Vass, Antony A.; Aggarwal, Neeru; Garfield, Cydonie; Cybyk, Beau
This article reports findings from a three-year project on 'Communication patterns and their consequences for effective care' that explored communication in dementia-care settings. As the proportion of people with dementia living in British care-homes continues to grow, there is a need to understand better their care. Using a range of qualitative methods, the project set out to identify the constituent elements of dementia-care practice and the patterns that characterise day-to-day relations in care homes. The tightly prescribed and standardised nature of the interactions between staff and residents is described: it raises questions about the capacity for dementia care to be truly person-centred. The project found that people with dementia are both capable of communication, and invest much effort in seeking to engage those around them, but are excluded from the monitoring, planning and provision of care in ways that we argue are discriminatory. The case is made for promoting and supporting communication as key skills and competencies for care workers. The value of measuring the level and quality of communication as a means to evaluate care is demonstrated. The authors question the priorities that currently guide care practice and argue that we need to listen to people with dementia and rethink what lies at the heart of dementia care. 2008 Cambridge University Press.
A lesson from Victorian Times.
(Hearing Link, 2012-12) Ross, Liz
A methodological study into the linguistic dimensions of pitch range differences between German and English.
(2008) Mennen, Ineke; Schaeffler, Felix; Docherty, Gerard; ESRC
The aim of this paper is to develop the methodology that would allow us to investigate the nature of variability in pitch range across speakers of different languages. In particular, we wanted to investigate whether by using linguistically based pitch range measures, such as those proposed by [1-3], we are able to characterise differences in pitch range across languages. We investigated Southern Standard British English (SSBE) and Northern Standard German (NSG), as it is often assumed that speakers of SSBE have a wider pitch range than speakers of NSG [4]. Using the linguistic measures suggested by [3], we found no such differences between NSG and SSBE, although a difference in the predicted direction was found with another linguistically based measure. Our study highlights the difficulty of using the previously suggested linguistic measures for cross-language comparisons, as some tonal structures are not equally distributed across the two languages. We therefore suggest that more suitable linguistic measures of pitch range may need to take the tonal distribution in the different languages into account.
A mimicry study of adaptation towards socially-salient tongue shape variants
(Penn Graduate Linguistics Society, 2014-10-01) Lawson, Eleanor; Stuart-Smith, Jane; Scobbie, James M.
A Multi-Channel/Multi-Speaker Articulatory Database for Continuous Speech Recognition Research.
(2000) Wrench, Alan A.
The goal of this research is to improve the performance of a speaker-independent Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system by using directly measured articulatory parameters in the training phase. This paper examines the need for a multi-channel/multi-speaker articulatory database and describes the design of such a database and the processes involved in its creation.
A new EPG protocol for assessing DDK accuracy scores in children : a Down's syndrome study
(2007-08) McCann, Joanne; Wrench, Alan A.; This research was supported by a grant form the
Recent research has suggested that eliciting diadochokinetic (DDK) rate and accuracy in young children is difficult [1], with analysis being timeconsuming.This paper details a new protocol for assessing DDK in young children or children with intellectual impairment (Down's syndrome) and a method for calculating accuracy scores automatically. Accuracy scores were calculated from auditory and electropalatographic analyses and found to correlate in some instances. The children with Down's syndrome presented with similar DDK rates to typically-developing children but reduced accuracy.
A normative-speaker validation study of two indices developed to quantify tongue dorsum activity from midsagittal tongue shapes
(2013-07) Zharkova, Natalia
This study reported adult scores on two measures of tongue shape, based on midsagittal tongue shape data from ultrasound imaging. One of the measures quantified the extent of tongue dorsum excursion, and the other measure represented the place of maximal excursion. Data from six adult speakers of Scottish Standard English without speech disorders were analyzed. The stimuli included a range of consonants in consonant-vowel sequences, with the vowels/a/and/i/. The measures reliably distinguished between articulations with and without tongue dorsum excursion, and produced robust results on lingual coarticulation of the consonants. The reported data can be used as a starting point for collecting more typical data and for analyzing disordered speech. The measurements do not require head-to-transducer stabilization. Possible applications of the measures include studying tongue dorsum overuse in people with cleft palate, and typical and disordered development of coarticulation. 2013 Informa UK Ltd.
A perceptual and electropalatographic study of /∫/ in young people with Down's syndrome
(2009-12) Timmins, Claire; Cleland, Joanne; Wood, Sara; Hardcastle, William J.; Wishart, Jennifer
Speech production in young people with Down's syndrome has been found to be variable and inconsistent. Errors tend to be more in the production of sounds that typically develop later, for example, fricatives and affricates, rather than stops and nasals. It has been suggested that inconsistency in production is a result of a motor speech deficit. Late acquired fricatives such as /s/ and /∫/ are complex articulations, which may require more precise motor programming and may therefore show highly inconsistent productions. Other factors potentially affecting speech production in this population are abnormal palatal structure, hearing loss, and hypotonia. A group of 20 young people with Down's syndrome were recorded using Electropalatography (EPG), reading a wordlist containing the phrase ‘a sheep’. The wordlist contained seven other phrases and was repeated 10 times. Eight typically developing, cognitively matched children and eight adults were also recorded producing the same data set. Articulatory (EPG pattern analysis) and perceptual analyses of the 10 productions of /∫/ were carried out. /∫/ production was found to be inconsistent in the young people with Down's syndrome, with more errors both in the auditory analysis and articulatory analysis than in the typical sample, which may be due to a motor programming or motor control problem. There were a greater number of errors in the EPG analysis than in the perceptual analysis. This suggests that some young people with DS were able to produce perceptually acceptable /∫/ with atypical EPG patterns. The use of typical, adult-modelled /∫/ EPG patterns in therapy may be inappropriate for some children with DS who present with atypical palatal structures.
A phonetically versatile contrast: Pulmonic and glottalic voicelessness in Scottish English obstruents and voice quality
(Cambridge University Press, 2013-11-04) Gordeeva, Olga B.; Scobbie, James M.
This paper presents impressionistic, electroglottographic and acoustic data exploring the distribution of glottalic and pulmonic parameters in word-final Scottish English obstruents. On one hand, we focus on the relationship between these parameters and aspirated or glottalised phonatory settings of individual speakers. On the other hand, we explore the relationship between glottalic airstream and phonological /voice/. We show that laryngeally different phonatory settings such as glottalisation and aspiration can readily co-occur in the same speakers, and can be consistently used as secondary correlates of obstruent /-voice/. The results further show that although /-voice/ with glottalisation as its secondary correlate and ejective stops often co-occur near the same phonetic locus, they are not necessarily bound together in epiphenomenal terms in this variety of English.
A prerequisite to L1 homophone effects in L2 spoken-word recognition
(2015-01) Nakai, Satsuki; Lindsay, S.; Ota, M.
When both members of a phonemic contrast in L2 (second language) are perceptually mapped to a single phoneme in one's L1 (first language), L2 words containing a member of that contrast can spuriously activate L2 words in spoken-word recognition. For example, upon hearing cattle, Dutch speakers of English are reported to experience activation of kettle, as L1 Dutch speakers perceptually map the vowel in the two English words to a single vowel phoneme in their L1. In an auditory word-learning experiment using Greek and Japanese speakers of English, we asked whether such cross-lexical activation in L2 spoken-word recognition necessarily involves inaccurate perception by the L2 listeners, or can also arise from interference from L1 phonology at an abstract level, independent of the listeners' phonetic processing abilities. Results suggest that spurious activation of L2 words containing L2-specific contrasts in spoken-word recognition is contingent on the L2 listeners' inadequate phonetic processing abilities.
A psycholinguistic exploration of disfluency behavior during the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
(2017-08-18) Drevets, Megan; Lickley, Robin
A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of an automatic occlusion device for tracheoesophageal speech: The Provox Freehands HME.
(Taylor & Francis, 2006-04) Hamad, Rachel; Hewlett, Nigel; Scanlon, Emer
This study aimed to evaluate a new automatic tracheostoma valve: the Provox FreeHands HME (manufactured by Atos Medical AB, Sweden). Data from four laryngectomee participants using automatic and also manual occlusion were subjected to acoustic and perceptual analysis. The main results were a significant decrease, from the manual to automatic occlusion condition, in maximum phonation time, mean intensity of read speech and percentage pause time. There was an increase in random noise in the speech signal and a significant increase in extraneous noise caused by the device. Perceptual analysis revealed no clear functional impact of these differences. Data from a questionnaire and diary suggested the main advantage of automatic occlusion was the freedom to speak while performing manual tasks. The principal disadvantage appeared to be a decrease in baseplate seal duration. The results suggest that, for some clients, the FreeHands valve is a useful option for use alongside manual occlusion.
A re-evaluation of the nature of speech errors in normal and disordered speakers.
(Karger, 2005) Pouplier, Marianne; Hardcastle, William J.
It is well known that speech errors in normal and aphasic speakers share certain key characteristics. Traditionally, many of these errors are regarded as serial misorderings of abstract phonological segments, which maintain the phonetic well-formedness of the utterance. The current paper brings together the results of several articulatory studies undertaken independently for both subject populations. These show that, in an error, instead of one segment substituting for another, two segments are often produced simultaneously even though only one segment may be heard. Such data pose problems for current models of speech production by suggesting that the commonly assumed dichotomous distinction between phonological and phonetic errors may not be tenable in the current form or may even be altogether redundant.
A Scottish Executive review of speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy for children and speech and language therapy for adults with learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorder
(Scottish Executive Publications, 2003) Consultancy team from Queen Margaret University College; Scottish Executive
BACKGROUND TO THE REVIEW 1. In early 2002, the Scottish Executive embarked on a national review of Speech and Language Therapy, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy for children and Speech and Language Therapy for adults with learning disabilities. 2. The review was called in response to a number of concerns: There has been a significant increase in funding for Speech and Language Therapy for children with records of needs in recent years yet children still find it difficult to access services. The Riddell Advisory Committee Report 1 into the Education of Children with Severe and Low Incidence Disabilities (SLID) highlighted the problem of shortages of therapists leading to unacceptable waiting times for children with SLID. It raised questions about the current management and organisation of therapists and reported some dissatisfaction with funding mechanisms. The report of the Learning Disabilities Review, The same as you?2 stated that adults with learning disabilities found it difficult to access Speech and Language Therapy. It recommended that the review of children's therapy recommended by the Riddell Committee 1 should be extended to cover Speech and Language Therapy for adults with learning difficulties. 3. The review, therefore, intended to address issues such as continued shortages of therapists, the management of therapy provision and current funding mechanisms particularly for children's therapy. 4. The review was guided by a steering group made up of representatives from the Scottish Executive Education Department and the Scottish Executive Health Department as well as advisors from a number of stakeholder groups (see Appendix A for membership). 5. Queen Margaret University College provided consultancy to the review team. The University College undertook an investigation of Speech and Language Therapy, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy for children and Speech and Language Therapy for adults with learning disabilities as part of the review. The investigation is described in Chapter 4. In addition, a focus group was organised by the Scottish Consortium of Learning Disability to seek the views of adults with learning disabilities who use Speech and Language Therapy. The views of parents were fed into the review by the parent representative on the steering group.
A Short Term Study of Hungarians Learning Finnish Vowels
(Fonetiikan P_iv_t, 2014) Peltola, T.; Palo, Pertti; Aaltonen, O.
A group of Hungarian students (n=10) participated in a Finnish phonetics and conversation course during the first 3 months of their language studies. During the course, the students trained in the allophonic variation of Finnish speech sounds, comparing them to Hungarian sounds and participating in group conversation exercises. We call the method used on the course conscious phonetic training of foreign language speech sounds. Additionally, the students participated in one-on-one imitating exercises, which were recorded for the current study. We followed the participants' foreign sounds pronunciation development during the first semester of their studies and compared it to their peers (n=4). The results suggest that participating in the course affected the students' pronunciation skills towards the end of the three-month course, whereas, at the beginning, both of the groups' pronunciation was more similar.
A single case study of articulatory adaptation during acoustic mimicry
(2011-08) Lawson, Eleanor; Scobbie, James M.; Stuart-Smith, Jane; ESRC
The distribution of fine-grained phonetic variation can be observed in the speech of members of well-defined social groups. It is evident that such variation must somehow be able to propagate through a speech community from speaker to hearer. However, technological barriers have meant that close and direct study of the articulatory links of this speaker-hearer chain has not, to date, been possible. We present the results of a single-case study using an ultrasound-based method to investigate temporal and configurational lingual adaptation during mimicry. Our study focuses on allophonic variants of postvocalic /r/ found in speech from Central Scotland. Our results show that our informant was able to adjust tongue gesture timing towards that of the stimulus, but did not alter tongue configuration.
A socio-articulatory study of Scottish rhoticity
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Lawson, Eleanor; Scobbie, James M.; Stuart-Smith, Jane; Lawson, Robert
Increasing attention is being paid in sociolinguistics to how fine phonetic variation is exploited by speakers to construct and index social identity (Hay and Drager 2007). To date, most sociophonetic work on consonants has made use of acoustic analysis to reveal unexpectedly subtle variation which is nonetheless socially indexical (e.g. Docherty and Foulkes 1999). However, some aspects of speech production are not readily recoverable even with a fine-grained acoustic analysis. New articulatory analysis techniques, such as ultrasound tongue imaging (UTI), allow researchers to push the boundaries further, identifying seemingly covert aspects of speech articulation which pattern with indexical factors with remarkable consistency. One such case is postvocalic /r/ variation in Central Scotland.